piano
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: The aliens that abduct Jade are not friendly ones.


**Author's Note: It's Jade's birthday and whatnot. Or, well, it was. I'm late because I suck. ****So here's this celebratory piece of crap~! Funny actually, he and I are both virgos o3o **

**Flashbacks in italics just in case there's any confusion there o_e' **

* * *

He's naked.

The only stitches he has are the ones in his flesh, hideous knolls that ache torturously and stretch everywhere those three-fingered hands opened up and prodded inside.

_Jade is suddenly back on the spaceship. Unrelenting straps of a material he does not know bite into his wrists and ankles and keep him bound to a table as cold as the rejection of a loved one. Hairless heads as white as baby powder and seemingly too large for the paper towel roll sized necks they sit on float above him. Faces are home to eyes that are all pupil, no iris, no sclera, diagonal slits for nostrils, and lipless mouths that don't open. _

_He feels a scream rising in his chest but something suppresses it, something is immobilizing his larynx. Six three-fingered hands as skinny as pencils take up scalpels. It's not just the restraints, Jade realizes with dread like a single droplet from a melting icicle before it falls from its perch and spears the unfortunate individual beneath, they're oppressing him in some other way. Because he can't yell, he can't buck his hips or toss his head, he can't do a damn thing! _

_The first cut is made over his liver. He—_

No...No. He's not on the ship anymore. There are no faces floating above, there is a navy blue night sky crisscrossed by power lines. He can move now. He tilts his pounding head to the left and the glowing, neon 'Closed' sign greets him from where it sits in a familiar window. He's behind the gas station. Grass gently tickles his back and the dew is pleasantly cool on his skin.

Jade slowly sits up, ears ringing and head buzzing like a beehive.

He doesn't remember how he got here. He doesn't remember when he got here. What he remembers is,

_Each draw of the blade is a slow, methodical slice that stokes icy flames. His vision doubles and gales of panic blast inside the walls of his skull. But he can't even wiggle a finger. One of the otherworldly hands puts down the instrument to open his mouth. He's desperate to close it and bewildered as to how, just how is it that he can feel so much pain and still be numb!?_

_Something as thick as honey and orange as tangerines is poured down his throat and swallowing it is akin to swallowing thumbtacks. It's their minds, Jade thinks again, they're making him swallow with their minds_.

He needs to get home.

The air is chilly against his nudity. He needs to water the flowers in his room and crawl under the covers. He needs to bury his face under the pillow and forget everything, he needs to sleep and wake up to a morning where none of this ever happened.

Jade's legs do not support him when he tries to stand.

He gets up and they wobble feebly, giving way. He falls onto his hands and knees, mud smearing onto him. But this time when he cries out there is a sound, a faint sound as rough as sandpaper against a cactus, but a sound that actually reaches his ears. He trembles with relief and tries to stand a second time. His legs shake, knees knocking together before he hits the ground again.

They don't hurt. They just won't stay steady.

So Jade crawls. He crawls to the main road, asphalt scraping his palms and getting embedded in his knees. It must be late because there are no cars in sight. This is both a comfort and a distress. He doesn't want to be seen by some random stranger, get gawked at or hauled off to a police station due to his state, but at the same time he wants to see a sign of human life. He doesn't know when the last time he saw human life was, the last life he saw was,

_Those black, abyssal eyes are shaped like rhombuses and as big as his hands. They never blink, not once during the whole procedure. Jade doesn't think they have eyelids at all._

Dajan's house is closer than his. In fact, once Jade gets to the corner, it's just over two blocks away.

He attempts standing a third time and by some means he is successful. His feet feel heavy and clumsy, but they go in the direction he urges them in and that's what matters. Shivers shake his spine, the tiny hairs along his arms raise straight up and the skin bumps beneath then. He's cold, so cold, but not as cold as_—_

_Suction-cupped, scarily thin fingers digging through the cavity in his stomach. They feel and probe his organs. He's terrified they're going to pull them out. He's screaming his head off but the air remains as silent as a cemetery. If he could talk and they could understand, he would beg them to just kill him already so he wouldn't have to lie here vulnerable and sentient to every cursory incision they inflict. _

_The number of cuts they make, how many of his insides they touch, all blur together. Every time they suture him back up there is a harrowing, scalding friction of extraterrestrial thread being pulled and looped through his flesh. It goes on for what must be hours and he is awake for every wretched moment. _

By some miracle, Jade doesn't have to drag himself to the front door. The sky is paling with the promise of a sunrise and Dajan almost runs him over. Literally. Jade spies him on a morning jog and is spotted by him before he can croak out a greeting. Dajan's brisk jog quickens to a breakneck sprint as his mouth falls ajar.

"Jade! Oh my god! What the hell happened to you!?" All at once he skids to a stop and his hands are on Jade's shoulders, warm, much warmer than _those_ hands, and his eyes are widening with pure horror as they trail down the butchered-and-sewn expanse of Jade's skin. He keeps babbling, too shocked to shut it. "You're freezing! Hang on, I'll take you to a hospital! I just gotta get my keys."

"No," Jade pleads in a voice that hurts to use. His vocal chords are tangled chicken wire. "Don't. Please." Because the last thing he wants right now are more strangers with cutting tools, human or not.

Dajan's eyes meet his, stunned and vivd with alarm. "You've been missing for a week," he murmurs.

"It felt longer..." A week? Just a week? He feels dizzy all of a sudden. Dajan takes off his jacket and drapes it over Jade's shoulders. Were he able, he'd put his arms through the sleeves. The flannel is toasty with his friend's body heat.

"What happened?" Dajan asks again.

_Jade isn't thinking of whatever mundane activity he was in the throes of. He isn't thinking at all. He's as petrified as a rabbit in a foxhole. There is a blinding, painful violet-white spotlight that dyes his skin and radiates down to the marrow, his eyes refusing to close even though they're burning, burning, burning. They're practically sizzling in the sockets. _

_And then he's floating, floating up up up into the beam, and it's not the jovial, pleasant experience the phrase "walking on air," would make you think it is. His limbs feel packed with concrete but his belly feels like a half-full water balloon. He can't see anything but the light, the horrible glaring light. It overwhelms him and then he is on the metallic floor of the spaceship. _

"Jade? Hey, Jade?"

"Aliens," he whispers. "I was abducted by aliens."

For a precarious five seconds, Dajan just stares at him. "Aliens. You got abducted by aliens...Alright...Look, I'm sorry, but I gotta take you to the hospital. You need to see a doctor." Dajan puts an arm around Jade's shoulders and starts guiding him down the sidewalk. "It's gonna be okay," he tells him with the gentleness one uses to coax a stray kitten out from under a car. "You're okay. Everything's gonna be fine."

Jade is too weak to resist but he knows it's not going to be fine. Because if his best friend won't believe him, who will?


End file.
